Tuesday, September 29, 2009

This weekend, I found out what a bad idea it is to ride through injuries. I got through my dressage test OK at Jumpstart this weekend, but by the time XC rolled around, my back was all "Fuck you!" and I was all, "Oh, c'mon!" and so I fell off during warm up, further effed up my back, and had to scratch my entry.

Luckily, Megan has given me a few days off, so my gimpiness is starting to clear up. But it looks like Grady is going to have to wait a few months for his premiere, especially since he is still lame! Oh, horseback riding.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

I have been amiss posting in September, mostly because it has been busy around here and second mostly because I didn't think anyone actually read my posts. So thanks James :)

Last Tuesday was the Oldenburg baby inspection. We took our baby Fizz, who is a sweet, snuggly, stubborn creature, and she was so so good. We were freaking out the day before because it looked like she was sore on her front feet, and the vet told us to wrap them with the (very approximate) equivalent of horsey icy-hot and duct tape.

Emily and I were dreading this process because babies don't like being messed with and they sometimes retaliate pretty violently (see "Ghetto cookout and horse-related injuries"). I went to pick up one of Fizzy's feet, and instead of being angry, she just laid down, stuck out her legs, and waited patiently for us to put on her "pretty princess shoes." It was such a relief! Honestly, it's the little things... not getting kicked in the head by a baby horse can really make your day.

Last Wednesday, we went to the yearling sales at the Keeneland racetrack. Before we walked in the building, Megan warned us not to make eye contact with the Keeneland staff... or wiggle our eyebrows, or touch our noses, or make any sudden moves of any kind... because she didn't want us unknowingly bidding on a 100,000-dollar horse. Whew!

It was a kind of sad experience. All of the one-year-old thoroughbreds looked more like 4-year-old quarterhorses because they were hopped up on steriods and had logged hundreds of hours in an equiciser. Most yearlings spend their days playing bitey-face and eating grass out in a field with their friends.

Megan told us that all of the bids were fairly low this year because of the economy (ie, there were a lot of horses going for 100-200 thousand dollars instead of 400-500 thousand dollars), but we did see the bidding for a million-dollar horse. It was a half-sibling to the filly that won the Kentucky Derby this year.

On the way home from the race track, Megan drove us by a surprisingly not-famous Lexington landmark... a castle! Apparently, some really rich guy started building it as a tribute to his love for his wife. Halfway through the endevor, he went bankrupt and his wife left him! Someone else finished the project and turned it into an "inn" that costs $2500 a night. But I guess if you're flying in to Lexington to buy a million-dollar race horse, that seems like a reasonable price for lodging.

Last weekend, I groomed for Megan at the Flying Cross Horse Trials in Louisville. We took four horses and camped out in the horse trailer for a few nights. I would explain who won what, but eventing jargon is kind of confusing... needless to say, she did really really well on all of her guys.

This week, we're getting ready for the Jumpstart Horse Trials at the Kentucky Horse Park, which thankfully is only two miles from our farm. We're taking a few of Megan's students, and Emily and I are riding. Unforturnately, Emily's horse has been lame since the last show she tried to enter him in, and Grady turned up lame yesterday, so we had to do a switcharoo. So I'm riding her project horse Dolce, and she's riding my project horse Taz.

Now the only problem is that I'VE turned up lame with a pulled back or pinched nerve or something... whatever it is, I can't really walk. So hopefully I can get this under control by Friday, or I can dope myself up enough to get through the weekend. Ugh.

I will post pictures and other more interesting things once our wireless router starts working again. It is truly horrible to live without the internet, let me tell you!

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Today Emily and I decided to go on a bike ride downtown. First, we had to take Austin's old Fuji to the bike shop to get the tires replaced, and while we were waiting, we found some dog repellent... The best part: "Used by the US postal service for over 30 years."

We biked around the UK campus area for an hour or so... almost got lost, but found ourselves again, got honked at several times, thought about flirting with the bike shop boys, and generally had an awesome time!